Taneesa Williamson Dr Liz Golez is on a mission to help women with their vaginal concerns and remove the stigma around women’s health.
With a holistic approach to her practice as a GP, Dr Liz Golez first led her career in medicine with a specific interest to anti-ageing medicine, in which this soon extended into an interest of wellness, cosmetics, women’s health and Aesthetic Gynaecology. Her mission in practicing in Obstetrics and Gynaecology is to help women improve their vaginal concerns and de-stigmatise women’s health, and here, she explains how InMode’s EmpowerRF is revolutionary for her female patients.
Dr Liz Golez: I finished my Accredited Specialist Training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at a University Tertiary Hospital in the Philippines in 2003. Since then, I have advanced my training in O&G in tertiary hospitals around Australia and New Zealand and have since been a GP Obstetrician after receiving my Fellowship in RACGP (Royal Australian College of General Practitioners) and Advanced Diploma in RANZCOG (Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology) in 2013.
I trained with some of the best Cosmetic Doctors in Sydney, completing my training with AAAM (American Academy of Aesthetic Medicine), and I am a member of ACAM (Australasian College of Aesthetic Medicine) and IFAAS (International Fellowship in Advanced Aesthetic Science).
The Importance Of A Strong Pelvic Floor
Dr Liz Golez: Skin tightening treatments such as biostimulator injections, threadlifting and radiofrequency microneedling are my favourite cosmetic procedures. I age gracefully with my patients as I experience firsthand the effects of hormonal changes and ageing to our skin and body. I can fairly say my patients’ demographics are now mostly women in their peri-menopausal to menopausal stages, and the need to provide services as they age dictates the direction of how I evolved as a Women’s Health Doctor.
Moreover, my mum has debilitating genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM), most specifically incontinence. I saw how this common condition had affected her health, personality and quality of
life and started researching preventative options to not go through the same path and suffer the same fate. The answer is to maximally strengthen your pelvic floor muscles and for muscle memory to form before menopause sets in.
Women’s Health: A Billion Dollar Industry
Dr Liz Golez: According to recent studies taken in 2019, the women’s health market was estimated to be worth US$35.02 billion, but is on the trajectory to increase to upwards of US$41.05 billion by 2027, that coupled with the fact that approximately 1 in 3 women suffer from Stress Urinary Incontinence at some point in their lives, it has started to turn the conversations women are having. Women no longer need to be embarrassed as there is a solution. Women’s health is a growing industry with so many advances in technology, so it made sense for me to invest in a device that could treat these issues women are having.
It’s not surprising to learn that up to 76% of women experience decreased vaginal sensation, most commonly with a feeling of a widened vagina. Even vaginal atrophy, or atrophic vaginitis, results in sexual dysfunction affecting approximately 50% of postmenopausal women, not withstanding just how incontinence will affect the lives of almost 400 million people worldwide. You then look at the number of women that begin new relationships and feel that their genitalia is no longer aesthetically pleasing as they age, so based on what they’re seeing, they’re looking for solutions to feel better about themselves.
What The EmpowerRF Can Treat
Dr Liz Golez: I found InMode’s Women’s Wellness device, EmpowerRF, which treats the skin, muscles and fat layer, offering a mix and match combination of external RF energy, internal and external fractional RF micro-needling, electrical muscle stimulation (EMS), and internal RF energy. The options of treatments EmpowerRF provides are adjunct to recommended medical and surgical treatment of conditions experienced by women in the genitourinary areas. InMode responded to the market given the changing needs of women from puberty through to menopause, and the treatments are completely life-changing.
This device has a number of unique hand pieces that treat a range of different symptoms from urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction, genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM) or vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA), dryness, itching, reduced elasticity and burning during menopause as well as the changing aesthetic appearance as mentioned earlier.
The Morpheus8V applicator is used to treat the collagen boost for incontinence, loss of vaginal collagen (vulvovaginal atrophy), and vaginal muscle relaxation symptoms (collapsed pelvic floors), increasing lubrication and renewed thickness, strength and tone in the vaginal walls and labia. Contrary to what most people think, RF microneedling using the Morpheus8V intravaginally is not as painful as microneedling on the exposed areas of the skin. The birth canal doesn’t have many nerve endings, hence the procedure is very tolerable with the use of a strong compounded anaesthetic cream pre-procedure.
The Importance Of An Empathetic Consultation
Dr Liz Golez: The fear of any procedure on the intimate parts of the body is the first barrier that prevents women from seeking help. The initial consultation with the doctor is the most important part of everything, since establishing trust is crucial in the whole process. Patients who are empowered by being a part of the decision making of their treatment, involved in the process and in control the whole time (whereby they can always say stop if discomfort becomes unacceptable), respond very well to the treatments. Since the procedure is very tolerable to most, almost painless to some, patients relax after a few minutes into the procedure and start talking about scheduling their next appointments.
As a GP Obstetrician, establishing rapport with patients after a thorough and patient-centred consultation will make the patient feel at ease at the start. As a woman doctor, most patients feel at ease opening up to somebody who can relate to them. Someone who listens and gives them time to talk about how their symptoms affect their lives. The majority of my patients have not opened up about their incontinence and sexual dysfunction issues to anybody. When they start talking, they never seem to stop. The empathy and time spent listening to them helps establish the trust that makes them feel at ease in the subsequent examination.
Barriers to any woman’s health consultation include embarrassment (of talking about her genitourinary symptoms or exposing one’s self during the examination) and fear of perceived pain during examination on the intimate parts of the body. As mentioned before, the initial consultation with the doctor is the most important part of everything, since establishing trust is crucial in the whole process.
The fact that a range of treatments from the one device can be performed in my clinic (in office) at no huge cost, no surgery, no scarring with little to no downtime makes this a very sellable treatment. I have had patients come to me at their wits’ end, who have had surgery and still don’t feel it’s assisted their problems, so being able to offer EmpowerRF is life-changing for some patients.
For more information on InMode’s EmpowerRF, visit inmode.com.au
This article was originally published in SPA+CLINIC magazine #90
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